Wireless Positioning Approach Using Time Delay Estimates of Multipath Components

1. A wireless positioning method, comprising: estimating multipath delay components from each of a plurality of received signals; selecting appropriate delay estimates from the multipath delay components to conform to a predeterminded criterion; determining whether a mobile station and one or more involved base stations are in a particular geometry that can be reduced in a lower dimension space, the determining step including determining whether there are enough base stations for current estimation, and estimating an optimum parameter for the lower dimension space if there are not enough base stations, while leaving the parameter in a rest of the dimensions to be randomly selected in a feasible region other than an infeasible region or direction in which the mobile station is unlikely to be located; estimating the position of the mobile station in the lower dimension space if the mobile station and the one or more involved base stations are in the particular geometry; and estimating a location of the mobile station based on the selected delay estimates and a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delay function defining prior information of NLOS delays.

2. A wireless positioning apparatus, comprising: a multipath delay estimator configured to estimate multipath delay components from one or more received signals; a selector configured to select appropriate delay estimates from the estimated multipath delay components according to a predetermined criterion; a storage configured to store a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delay function defining prior information about NLOS delays; and a position estimator configured to estimate a position of a mobile station based on the selected delay estimates and the NLOS delay function read out from the storage, wherein the selector selects a line-of-sight (LOS) delay estimate of LOS propagation if there is one in the multipath delay components, and further selects NLOS delay estimates such that variances of those NLOS delay estimates are smaller than a first threshold and that the signal strength corresponding to those NLOS delay estimates is greater than a second threshold.

3. A wireless positioning apparatus, comprising: a multipath delay estimator configured to estimate multipath delay components from one or more received signals; a selector configured to select appropriate delay estimates from the estimated multipath delay components according to a predetermined criterion; a storage configured to store a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delay function defining prior information about NLOS delays; a position estimator configured to estimate a position of a mobile station based on the selected delay estimates and the NLOS delay function read out from the storage; and a second position estimator configured to estimate the position of the mobile station in a reduced dimension space if the mobile station and involved base station(s) are in a particular geometry, wherein the selector selects a line-of-sight (LOS) delay estimate of LOS propagation if there is one in the multipath delay components, and further selects NLOS delay estimates such that variances of those NLOS delay estimates are smaller than a first threshold and that the signal strength corresponding to those NLOS delay estimates is greater than a second threshold.

4. A wireless positioning method, comprising: estimating multipath delay components from each of a plurality of received signals; selecting appropriate delay estimates from the multipath delay components so as to conform to a predetermined criterion; and estimating a location of a mobile station based on the selected delay estimates and a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delay function defining prior information of NLOS delays, wherein the selecting step includes selecting a line-of-sight (LOS) delay estimate of LOS propagation if there is one in the multipath delay components, and further selecting NLOS delay estimates such that variances of the NLOS delay estimates are smaller than a first threshold and that the signal strength corresponding to the NLOS delay estimates is greater than a second threshold.

5. A wireless positioning apparatus, comprising: estimating multipath delay components from each of a plurality of received signals; selecting appropriate delay estimates from the multipath delay components so as to conform to a predetermined criterion; determining whether the mobile station and one or more involved base stations are in a particular geometry that can be reduced in a lower dimension space; estimating the position of the mobile station in the reduced dimension space if the mobile station and the involved base station(s) are in the particular geometry; and estimating a location of a mobile station based on the selected delay estimates and a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) delay function defining prior information of NLOS delays, wherein the selecting step includes selecting a line-of-sight (LOS) delay estimate of LOS propagation if there is one in the multipath delay components, and further selecting NLOS delay estimates such that variances of the NLOS delay estimates are smaller than a first threshold and that the signal strength corresponding to the NLOS delay estimates is greater than a second threshold.